After the pit stops, Johnson had seven seconds to make up with 26 laps remaining. He couldn’t come close, finishing 2.657 seconds behind Newman.

“I can go home with a smile on my face, four time (Brickyard winner),” Johnson said after the second-place finish. “Having a race-winning car like we did, I hate to let this opportunity slip by, but it's gone, not a lot we can do about it, but we'll come back next year and try to do it again.”

No matter how good Johnson’s Hendrick Motorsports team can be, the five-time Cup champions were even better than usual in a season during which they have a 75-point lead in the series standings and are tied for the season-high in wins with four.

“There's been some late-race mistakes on my behalf that have taken race wins away from us, granted not a major event like this,” Johnson said.

“But we win as a team, lose as a team. We still ended up second. We have a lot to be proud of over the course of the weekend. We'll do the best to let it roll off our shoulders by tomorrow afternoon.”

Johnson understood the decision by crew chief Chad Knaus to take four tires even though it tipped the team’s hand to Newman, who pitted one lap after Johnson. Both teams just needed one can of fuel, so a two-tire stop was an option for both of the leaders.

“Traffic was tough to deal with,” Johnson said. “Tires made a big difference. The biggest example to me, I was on two next to the last stop, and Ryan was on four. He was mired in traffic. He worked his way through, started to track me down.

“I think that led Chad to his decision for four on our last stop.”

Even without the lengthy pit stop, there would have been no guarantee that Johnson could have beat Newman because of the difficulty of passing at IMS.

“Track position was really important, especially the way my car was driving,” Johnson said. “Although it had plenty of speed, it wasn't the easiest thing to drive.

“My times that I caught lap traffic or had to pass someone for position, it took a lot of risk to get that done. I was able to manage all that well.”

Johnson didn’t have a lot of hope after the pit stop.

“I knew I was going to have my hands full with him,” Johnson said. “His car had a lot of pace. He did an amazing job.

“We came up short, definitely not what we wanted, but a solid performance.”